I admit there are days when I really miss the smell of dried leaves and the beautiful fall colors. For my 4 year old daughter’s lunch, I tried to make a little autumn in her Easy LunchBoxes container.

I love finding new ways to reuse existing tools. My readers have probably noticed my slight obsession with the small cookie cutter presses. I loved the patterns they leave in the sandwiches. This leaf cutter was part of a set for cutting fancy pie crusts. I use them year-round for cutting fruit, vegetables and mini sandwiches. The leaves are made from Rudi’s organic whole grain bread and filled with Trader Joe’s pumpkin butter. The tree trunk is two pretzel rods. Green grapes are the grass on a pick. The top left is filled with organic rapsberries with an oak leaf & acorn pick. In the top right there are 2 Crimson Gold tiny apples and a peeled clementine with a scarecrow pick.

Miss G’s snack is a Happy Tiffin brand stainless bento filled with cashews and dried edamame in the bottom container. At the top are dried apricots, grape tomatoes and a peeled clementine.

For my 2 year old daughter, I packed a LunchBots Quad. From the top left, she has long grain brown rice mixed with vegetables and black beluga lentils. Green grapes and raspberries are in yellow silicone ovals at the top right. In the bottom right compartment are Rudi’s organic whole grain bread cut into mini ice cream cones with a small cookie cutter plunger and filled with Trader Joe’s pumpkin butter and in the bottom left compartment is a peeled clementine and a small silicone container of marcona almonds. Both girls have ice water with their lunches.

Mom’s had her hands in the Play Doh collection again. I found a mini Cinderella crown cutter in the Play Doh stash so I’ve scoured it off and I’m using it for lunches now. Miss G has a princess sandwich today cut with a LunchPunch sandwich cutter. She has yellow and red grape tomatoes surrounding the sandwich. At the top left are crown shaped cantaloupe pieces with a princess wand pick and at the top right are kiwi slices with a tiara on top packed in her Easy LunchBoxes container.

For her snack today, my 4 year old has a Happy Tiffin stainless bento filled with sliced mangos, a peeled clementine, 2 Crimson Gold tiny apples and whole cashews.

My 2 year old had leftovers from last night. She had plums, carambola (star fruit) spaghetti squash with marinara sauce topped with dairy free parmesan and pineapple chunks packed in her LunchBots Quad stainless lunch container.

Wednesday is a perfect day for leftovers. Mom’s feeling a bit under the weather so dump dinner in an Easy LunchBoxes container & voila. Lunch is served.

Lunch today (dinner last night) is brown rice with mixed vegetables (broccoli, carrots, snow peas and onions) on top. I packed a tiny sauce container of soy sauce. In the top left container are grape tomatoes and in the top right are red grapes.

Little Miss 2 year old has a LunchBots Quad for lunch. From the top left are clementine sections with a star container of pumpkin seeds, red seedless grapes, star sandwiches with pumpkin pecan butter and a small Hail Merry brand chocolate vegan macaroon, and at the bottom left are mini carrots and sugar snap peas.

Happy Monday, everyone! Hope you all had a safe Halloween. I packed some post-Halloween pasta today for the girls’ lunches. I cooked some farfalle (butterfly) pasta and added orange grape tomatoes and black olives for the fall/Halloween look. In Miss G’s Goodbyn Bynto, I added a small blue container of vegan parmesan for sprinkling over the top. Next to that in the bottom compartment is a peeled clementine orange and coconut date balls for a treat. Her ice water fits in the middle compartment.

In her Happy Tiffin stainless bento is half of a d’Anjou pear surrounded by red grapes. In the round container is cinnamon applesauce for her snack.

Miss A usually has a smaller version of what everyone else is having. In her LunchBots Duo is a peeled clementine at the top left surrounded by red grapes. Below that is a coconut date ball surrounded by dried apricots. On the right side is her farfalle pasta with halved grape tomatoes and black olives. Hers is already sprinkled with a bit of vegan parmesan to minimize mess.

For her small snack today, she has cashews and a mini box of California raisins.

It’s almost trick or treat time. I wish I could say that I’m ready, but I’m not. My kids’ costumes were ordered and still haven’t arrived. I am throwing a party in my front yard this year with my neighbor so we can feed the kids healthy food, play games and wear them out a bit before trick or treating. We did the same last year, and they were pretty full from healthy food before all the candy so it was a success! We made almond butter and jam sandwiches, fresh fruit, vegetable sticks with dip, hummus and pretzels and ice water. Any fun ideas that you all are planning? I’d love to hear your ideas!

My 2 year old has a jack o lantern sandwich made from the heel of the bread loaf and filled with pumpkin butter spread. She also has black olives, cantaloupe pumpkins, dried apricot pumpkins and at the top left is a nut and seed mixture with dried cranberries complete with zombie hand and tombstone. At the top right is a peeled clementine packed in her Easy LunchBoxes container.

Little Miss G (4) has a similar lunch today. She has the same jack-o-lantern sandwich, a jack-o-lantern clementine, pumpkin shaped dried apricots and trail mix of nuts and berries in her Easy Lunchboxes Mini dipper container. At the top left is a seckel pear and at the top right are pumpkin shaped cantaloupe pieces packed in her Easy LunchBoxes container.

And for a snack I packed a Happy Tiffin stainless bento with raspberries, a clementine ghost and the round container full of cashews.

We had a rough morning in our house yesterday, and I failed to get a photo of one of the lunches. Miss G’s lunch was ditalini pasta leftover from dinner. I added steamed edamame and sliced grape tomatoes in one half of her LunchBots Duo container and on the left side are raspberries and seckel pear halves.

I decided to carve a clementine jack-o-lantern for Miss G’s snack. It’s not perfect, but it was fun to make and she really liked it. I placed sliced kiwi around the clementine and not shown is cinnamon applesauce as part of her snack in her Happy Tiffin bento container.

Spiders! These are the delicious kind. I happen to like most spiders, but I know many people are creeped out by them.

Miss G’s lunch today is an almond butter sandwich (bottom left) on Rudi’s Whole Grain bread. She has spider picks of grape tomatoes on either side and a homemade vegan cornbread muffin with raisin eyes. At the top left are strawberries with a honeydew spider and a plastic spider ring for decoration. At the top right are red seedless grapes with honeydew spiders on top packed in her Easy LunchBoxes container.

For her snack, Miss G has a Happy Tiffin bento packed with a seckel pear and raspberries. In the container is apricot soy yogurt with some spiders for fun.

I packed another snack for a longer day so Miss G also had watermelon cubes in her sistema container with a raw date treat with coconut sprinkled on it. It reminded me of a tarantula.

Little Miss 2 year old had her LunchBots Quad with red grapes at the top left in the spider cup, raspberries and a strawberry, almond butter spider sandwiches at the bottom right and at the bottom left is a cup of dried cranberries and sprouted seasoned pumpkin seeds.